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Imagine Affairs revitalizes the classic murder-mystery template with current-day touches: Scenarios reference the modern nightclub in which the audience and actors gather, and cases are cracked by CSI-style cops, not Holmesian detectives or omniscient robots. Meanwhile, the actors leaven the dire situation with doses of improv comedy and audience interaction, which lets guests become as entangled in plot twists as they want.

Groupon Guide

The mission district in San Francisco is an eclectic hub of dining spots, markets, and culture. Boasting some of the best weather in the city due to SF’s “microclimates” - the mission is one of the most comfortable places to walk around and explore the various restaurants.
Here are a few highlights of dining spots to experience in the Mission.
Pizzeria Delfina: Arguably some of the best pizza in the bay area, this pizzeria is the casual counterpart to Delfina (the more formal Italian restaurant also in SF). Pizzeria Delfina has a variety of pizzas to choose from including the Broccoli Rabe (with mozzerella, hot peppers and olives) and the Panna (with tomato sauce, cream, basil and parmigiano). They also have an extensive wine list and antipastis to choose from.
Tartine Bakery: You can count on a crowd at this popular bakery that carries eclairs, flourless mousse cake, bread pudding and croissants. You can also indulge in more substantial bites around lunchtime with their pressed sandwiches or Croque Monsieur.
Dosa: This restaurant serves up traditional South Indian cuisine with a twist - using mostly organic and free-range ingredients. Try the “north and south” samosas, and one of their many inventive dosas like white truffle masala, or the organic greens dosa.
Bi-Rite Creamery: Bi-rite is a favorite ice cream spot using organic, all-natural ingredients. They have fun flavors like coffee toffee and salted caramel, in addition to popsicles and baked goods. On a hot day, it’s the perfect place to visit and then sit out in Dolores Park with your goodies.
Foriegn Cinema: This restaurant offers classic film screenings on the patio during dinner. It has a unique ambiance and has been in business for over 10 years. They have a great bar with unique drinks and top rated cuisine from award winning chefs.

There are plenty of restaurants in the City serving great fried chicken, but very few offer a full bar with a decent whiskey selection. Sure, beer pairs well, but we believe that whiskey is a better choice to imbibe with the crispy poultry. After all, it is the other Southern staple and is a lot less filling. Whiskey’s higher alcoholic content also helps to cut down the fat. A natural pairing together, fried chicken can also help ward off the hangovers from too much whiskey. Don’t believe us? Try it yourself at one of these places.
Hard Water | Pier 3, The Embarcadero
It’s hard to say whether the whiskey or the chicken is the draw for this tiny 1000 square foot waterfront restaurant, owned by The Slanted Door’s Charles Phan, specializing in whiskey and Southern food. More than 150 different bottles of whiskey (many of them premium and hard to get) are available as one or two ounce pours, providing the ultimate tasting to pair with their excellent fried chicken. Three crispy, cornmeal coated pieces are served with a tasty pepper jelly, but the house-made hot sauce is our choice to spice it up. Make sure to get the fried alligator or pork cracklings to complete the fried experience.
Mission Bowling Club | 3176 17th Street
Three perfectly fried boneless thighs arrive suspended from skewers on a tray made from recycled bowling alley wood (pictured above). At $10, it’s a great deal; so much so that you should just go ahead and order two so no sharing is required. There are plenty of bourbon and rye choices to pair with the chicken. The background bowling noise adds a retro feel to this Mission joint.
The Front Porch | 65a 29th Street
Their motto is Mission Southern Hospitality, and they certainly deliver. Fried chicken comes in a single order of four pieces served in a cafeteria-style tray with mashed potatoes and collard greens (pictured above), or by the bucket of 10 pieces with some popcorn thrown in. Make sure to ask for their house-made spicy sauces to dress the crispy chicken. Bourbon is the right choice to pair with their chicken, and they have more than a few selections available.
Town Hall | 342 Howard Street
The fried chicken has been on the menu since day one of their decade-long existence. It’s a good thing because their version is one of the best around. A garlic, onion, and butter solution is injected to the buttermilk-soaked chicken prior to frying, adding a ton of flavor while keeping the chicken very moist. They have lots of other good Southern-inspired food on the menu, but the fried chicken is a must-order. A selection of one of the few bottles of bourbons is the right pairing with the chicken.
Wayfare Tavern | 558 Sacramento Street
Celebrity Chef Tyler Florence returned to the restaurant scene three years ago and more than proved that he can cook at this perennially crowded place. He recently shared the secret to his excellent moist fried chicken: slow cooking at a low temperature of 200oF prior to battering and frying. The chicken is accompanied by fried garlic cloves and topped with fried herbs (sage and thyme), and the best way to eat a piece is with a squeeze of lemon supplied with the dish. The dish (pictured above) is fairly large with 5 pieces, so plan on sharing and ordering a side of mac and cheese to complete the meal. It’s a tavern, so the selection of whiskeys is great, as befits the gentlemen’s club atmosphere.

Dining out in groups larger than four can be tricky business in San Francisco. Wait times can be excruciatingly long, harried wait staff often find large groups to be a pain and many restaurants simply make no effort to seat a big gathering together at all. But the pleasures of a long, leisurely dinner full of catching up with old friends are not to be underestimated. And while reservations well ahead of time are never out of place, some of the city’s best restaurants welcome spontaneity – even in large groups.
Gigantic, indoor-outdoor Mission mainstay Foreign Cinema already has a number of large tables as part of its standard floor plan, and it’s a terrific place for a ten-person brunch or dinner for a clan-sized family. With a bit of advance notice to the staff, they can push a few heat lamps together and generate some intimacy for even the biggest gaggle of humans, including people who talk through whatever film they’re screening on the rear wall.
Casually upscale Hayes Valley bier hall Suppenküche is a great choice for a big group, considering they don’t even accept reservations for parties smaller than six. While it may be a bit on the loud side in the main room, scoring a table toward the back makes a conversation among friends perfectly feasible. The fabled German Boot, a titanic glass drinking vessel in the shape of, well, a boot, was clearly designed for big groups to pass around in a spirit of camaraderie. At Suppenküche, big and boisterous groups certainly aren’t frowned upon – in fact, they’re almost mandatory.
For a medium-sized group in the six to seven person range, Velvet Cantina is a perfect fit. The dimly lit Mexican place, located in the Mission, boasts two separate dining rooms and lots of round corner booths, big enough for everyone to squeeze in over a pitcher of margaritas. Far from fancy, Velvet Cantina’s relaxed vibe makes it a great place for friends to grab a snack, put back a few adult beverages and really have some fun. And on any given night, there will be at least a birthday or two, which means you might just end up singing happy birthday.
If your group is more, shall we say, picky, head to Millennium. The massive Tenderloin palace of all things vegan has something to satisfy every taste, making it the ideal place to split the difference for groups that contain gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian and carnivorous eaters. Hip but not overly so, it’s consistently packed full of large parties experiencing one of several tasting menus. And unlike lots of other vegetarian or vegan spots around town, Millennium has a full bar, meaning there’s no excuse to not gather up here with ten or so of your best friends.

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